Torcuil
Memo to self: under no circumstances shorten her name. Do not, I repeat do not, call her Maggie. Once you remember that, you’ll be fine.
She really has the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen. I’d caught a glimpse of them that night, but the light of the lamp post was so dim I couldn’t see her face properly. They are so dark they’re nearly black. She looks Italian, but then when she opens her mouth a London accent comes out. She has small hands, and a wedding band on her middle finger. Inary said she and her husband are separated. Not that I have any ideas about her, obviously, no interest in her at all. This kind of thing doesn’t tend to work out with me anyway, not since Izzy, so there’s no point even thinking about it, really.
God, those eyes.
She is yet another reason why I can’t wait to get back to Glen Avich next week – but I shouldn’t be thinking that, of course. In fact, I didn’t just think that at all; it was just a ripple of the mind and I’ve already forgotten it.
“So that’s you sorted. For the summer, at least,” Inary says as I pack my bag to go back to Edinburgh.
“Yeah. Funny how papers that fitted my bag on the way here don’t fit any more on the way back . . .”
“You like her,” Inary says abruptly.
“Shut up. She’s married.”
“Separated. And you are quite a catch, Torcuil.”
“I’m every woman’s dream,” I say. It’s meant as a joke, but there’s an edge of bitterness to it. These last few years have been . . . how can I put it? I don’t want to say lonely and sound whiny. They have been cold. Yes, cold is the word.
Bone-chilling, to be honest. But I just don’t seem to be able to feel anything for anyone else. A vague goodwill, or physical attraction, or fondness. But love, no. Not love, never again.
There was someone, long ago. Eleven years ago, to be precise. It’s a short story: I loved her and she loved me, but clearly not as much, because she left me for someone else.
In those eleven years there have been other women of course, but they never really worked out. To be precise, it was me who didn’t work out. I suppose you would say I’m wary of letting my guard down, after having been so badly betrayed – but I have another theory: that I just didn’t care enough for any of them. I mean, I cared for them, but I didn’t love them. Not the love I’d felt for my fiancée, which had been so much more than friendship, so much more than a crush, so much more than attraction or being compatible or having a laugh together, and all other parameters of what love should be. My love for her was about my soul reaching for hers and wanting to be with her and never be apart again.
Maybe it had something to do with her having been hurt in the past, I don’t know – this desperate need I had to house her within me, to be her home and place of peace.
Nobody else could compare.
“Want a lift back?” I ask my cousin as we make our way to the car.
“No thanks. It’s a lovely afternoon, I’ll walk. See you soon.”
Since she moved back to Glen Avich when Emily died, Inary and I have become very close. Considering the non-existent relationship I have with my sister and the fact that I hardly ever see my brother, though he only lives down the road, this is good news to me. To be fair, my brother Angus and I are close; it’s that with Isabel’s health getting worse and his job taking him all over the world, it’s hard for him to get away. Sometimes it feels like I am quite alone.
I am now thirty-six years old and on my own. I am drifting.
I am drifting and I think that the only thing that’s keeping me from getting lost at sea is this house, Ramsay Hall. My sister often says that this place is an albatross around our necks, but she’s so wrong. To me, Ramsay Hall is a buoy. It’s what saves me from drowning. I have this overwhelming feeling that if I save Ramsay Hall I will, somehow, save myself.